


I Know You/You Know Me

by coffeegrl



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Comfort, Father Figures, Gen, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 17:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeegrl/pseuds/coffeegrl
Summary: Comfort and hurt/comfort fics between Gil and Malcolm from Fox's "Prodigal Son," exploring their surrogate father & son relationship. Chapters will not necessarily be connected to anything on the show. Some will be pure comfort, with no murders or police work included. Other characters may pop up, but the central theme will be Gil comforting Malcolm.





	I Know You/You Know Me

**Author's Note:**

> *Chapter 1 slightly edited on 10/26/19*
> 
> After two episodes I am in LOVE with Fox's "Prodigal Son!" I came because of Tom Payne, who I loved as Jesus on The Walking Dead. I stayed because of every single thing about the show.
> 
> I do not own these characters and I have no rights to them. I am simply playing with them and I will put them back on the shelf when I am done.

Gil and Malcolm were once again in Gil’s office celebrating the end of another murder investigation. “Here’s to another killer behind bars,” Gil said, clinking his glass with Malcolm’s. 

“Here, here,” Malcolm said, his voice sounding scratchy.

Gil suspected Malcolm was coming down with a cold, but hadn’t said anything. Malcolm had been sneezing and coughing the past couple days, both steadily increasing in frequency and intensity. He now sounded congested and Gil had seen him wince several times when taking a drink of water, like his throat hurt to swallow. Yep, classic cold symptoms for Malcolm.

Gil gently put the back of his hand to Malcolm’s forehead. He was a little warm, but his temperature definitely wasn’t high enough to indicate something worse than a cold, like strep or the flu. 

“Um, what are you doing?” Malcolm asked. 

“Trying to determine just how sick you are,” Gil said, moving his hand from his forehead to under his jaw. His lymph nodes were definitely swollen, a good indicator that Malcolm was about to enter the worst part of the cold. He would be miserable for a few days and then things would start to get better. 

“I’m fine Gil. Really,” he said, with that charming smile of his. “I’ve just been having some allergies lately. You know. Because of pollen from the flowers and trees in the parks.” He then grabbed a tissue out of the box on Gil’s desk and sneezed three times. “See. Allergies. That’s all,” he said, sounding much stuffier than he had just a couple minutes ago. 

“Malcolm,” Gil said, looking him dead in the eyes. “There is no pollen. It’s January and it hasn’t gotten above freezing for 3 days now.” 

“Is it January already? Didn’t we have one of those just last year?” he asked, trying to be funny and distract Gil from going into over-protective mother-hen (father-rooster? he wondered) role. 

“Malcolm, do you remember two years ago? Come on, let’s not have a repeat of that.” 

Gil was referring to when Malcolm had been hit hard with a flu bug. He had refused to take any time off from work or ask for help, powering through in that Malcolm way of his, until he had collapsed in his office at the Bureau. Ainsley had been out of the country and Gil was listed as his second emergency contact. It had taken Gil almost five hours to drive down to D.C. from Manhattan. Malcolm had refused to go to the hospital when the paramedics had arrived, so Gil picked him up from his office where he was being watched over by a secretary who was old enough to be Gil’s mother. “And you better take care of that boy!” she had yelled at Gil as he helped Malcolm out of the building. 

“I know, I know,” Malcolm said. “But this is just a cold, it’s not the flu.”

“Aha! So you’re admitting that you DO have a cold,” Gil said. “I knew I’d get the truth out of you.”

“Well, you’re very good at interrogation,” Malcolm said, laughing, then doubling over when a coughing fit seized him.

“Come on. Let’s get you home,” Gil said, grabbing Malcolm’s and his coats. 

“I’m fine. I can just grab a taxi or use the subway,” Malcolm insisted.

“Nope. I’m driving you home,” Gil said. “But we gotta make a stop first.”  
******************************************************************************  
“No, Gil, please don’t,” Malcolm said, turning those puppy-dog eyes on Gil as he pulled into a parking space in front of a drugstore. “You know I can’t….Those cold meds…..They knock you out.”

“Relax,” Gil said, cupping the back of Malcolm’s neck. “I’m not going to get those cold-medicine cocktails where everything is in one pill, including stuff to make you sleep. I’m going a la carte today. I want to make sure you’ve got Tylenol for achiness and any fever you’re running, a non-drowsy decongestant, and cough drops, ok?”

Malcolm visibly relaxed. “Ok.”

While Malcolm waited in the car Gil ran in and gathered up the items he had mentioned along with chicken noodle soup, Gatorade, saltine crackers, and Jello. Gil didn’t consider any of these items to really be food. Even the crackers by themselves were more of a condiment or utensil in Gil’s opinion. They were an item you added to something else, like chili, to change the texture, or whose sole purpose was to transfer dip from your plate to your mouth. But he knew Malcolm considered them food, so he only hoped he’d be able to get him to eat a few with the soup. Malcolm had a hard enough time eating when he was healthy. Getting him to eat when he was sick was about as bad as trying to get a four year old to eat broccoli. He grabbed a box of hot tea and a squeeze bottle of honey before leaving the grocery aisle.

He then threw a couple of movies that were on the $5 display along with some Epsom salt in the cart in case Malcolm wanted to soak in his tub to try to relieve any achiness he had. Tissues went into the cart next along with a couple magazines he knew Malcolm liked.

The last thing he grabbed was a couple thick new release hardback books close to the register. Gil was expecting to spend at least the next couple days and nights with Malcolm at his place, making sure he took care of himself. He always carried a bag in the trunk of his car with toiletries and personal items, along with a couple changes of clothes and something to wear to bed in case he ever found himself unexpectedly not able to go home for a couple days. He knew he could just run home to his place if he needed to, but he also knew he wasn’t going to want to leave Malcolm until the worst of the cold was over. 

He figured there would be very few groceries at Malcolm’s place, but he would just order food to be delivered to the apartment when he was hungry. He was also hoping that by ordering food, he might be able to get Malcolm to order something as well, even if it was off the children’s menu. Gil had learned long ago that with delivery and drive-through places you could typically order off the kid’s menu even without a kid visibly present. After all, who’s to say the kid isn’t going to be home from the park or school any minute now, or that you’re not going to be taking food home to a kid. 

As he waited in line to pay, he thought about the raw deal Malcolm had gotten in life. You know, with his father being a serial killer and all the issues that had arisen from that, including the night terrors. And when Malcolm was sick, his night terrors were worse. Gil wanted to be there because, no matter how much Malcolm fought it, just being sick in general would cause him to fall asleep, as illness does to most people. And he was not going to leave Malcolm alone to deal with illness and night terrors on his own.  
******************************************************************************  
When Gil got back to the car he noticed that Malcolm had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, which was definitely proof that he felt horrible. He hated having to wake him up, but he couldn’t risk him having a night terror and grabbing Gil or the steering wheel, or even opening the car and tumbling out into traffic. “Hey kid,” he said, gently shaking him awake. “I need you to wake up until you get home.”

Malcolm slowly opened his eyes, squinting against the sunlight. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“It’s ok. You definitely need the rest,” Gil said, pulling out into traffic. “Just wait until you get home, then you can sleep all you want.” 

“I guess I really am sick, since that sounds like a great idea,” Malcolm said, smiling then immediately sneezing. “Just out of curiosity,” Malcolm said, after blowing his nose on a tissue he had grabbed from the new box Gil had just bought, “how long have you known I’ve had a cold coming on?”

“Since two days ago,” Gil said, signaling to turn onto Malcolm’s street and pulling into the ($25 per day!) parking garage next to his building. “Not only have I seen you sick before, but I am also a detective. Your throat obviously hurts when you swallow, you’ve been sneezing and coughing, and you always rub your ears when you have a cold because they feel like they’re stuffed with cotton and you’re trying to hear better.”

“You’re good,” Malcolm said, as they entered his apartment. 

As Malcolm changed into sweat pants and a t shirt, Gil began putting the items he bought where they belonged. “Alright kid, Jello cup or chicken noodle soup with crackers?”

“Neither?” Malcolm responded, like a child who had just been asked if he wanted broccoli or Brussel sprouts. In other words, like someone who knew he was going to be forced to eat one, but was still holding onto hope that maybe this one time, the subject of food would be dropped.

“Nope, that’s not flying with me today. You need to eat something. Choose or I’m choosing for you.”

“I’ll have some soup then. But I can’t promise I’ll eat the crackers,” Malcolm said. 

“Deal,” Gil replied. That had been the whole reason he had mentioned crackers with the soup. He knew Malcolm would feel like he had won by offering to eat soup without crackers. If Gil had only offered up Jello or soup, Malcolm would have felt like he was giving in completely.

Gil put the soup in a pan on the stove to begin warming, then opened the Tylenol and decongestant bottles. He read the instructions, then shook pills out in his hand and handed them to Malcolm. Malcolm swallowed them with some water without question. If it had been his mother trying to give him pills, well, he would have been suspicious that she had somehow snuck something else in there. 

“Movie?” Gil asked. He knew it would take a while for Malcolm to eat the soup, and then he wanted to get some tea with honey into him to help his throat. 

“Sure” Malcolm replied, curling up on the sofa under a blanket. 

Gil put in an action movie, then poured some of the soup into a mug. “Careful, it’s hot,” he said, handing the mug to Malcolm. There was probably only a cup or so of soup in the large mug, but it took Malcolm an hour to finish it. But Gil didn’t press him to eat more. He would try for some Jello tomorrow. 

He made two cups of tea, adding honey to Malcolm’s. Surprisingly, he drank that too, although he didn’t finish until the movie’s credits were rolling. 

“Alright kid,” Gil said, noticing Malcolm trying to hide a yawn. “You need to get some rest.”

Malcolm used the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then crawled into bed. Gil propped some pillows under him, keeping him elevated and making it easier to breathe through the congestion. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Gil asked, when Malcolm put his mouth guard in. “You need to be able to breathe.”

Malcolm gave him a thumbs up, then Gil secured him in his wrist restraints. Gil sat next to Malcolm for the next 15 minutes gently stroking his hair, knowing that would help put him to sleep. Once he was sure Malcolm was out, he cleaned up the kitchen and then settled on the couch with one of the books he had bought. He read peacefully for a couple hours then….

“Mmm!! Mmmm!!!!” Malcolm was having a night terror. Gil was on his feet and next to Malcolm in seconds. 

Gil stood to the side and gently shook Malcolm. “Malcolm. Malcolm.” He didn’t yell or try to violently shake him awake. Malcolm’s doctor had said it was fine to try to wake him, but to be gentle about it. He stayed far enough back that he wouldn’t risk having his head collide with Malcolm’s when he woke up. 

Finally Malcolm shot up in bed, eyes wide with terror, still screaming through his mouth guard. As soon as Gil saw he was awake, he started undoing the wrist restraints while Malcolm spit his mouth guard out. Gil could tell Malcolm was shaking and on the verge of tears so he immediately sat next to him and drew him into a hug.

“Shhhh….It’s alright. You’re awake now and you’re fine.” Malcolm put his arms around Gil and buried his head in the crook of his neck. Gil kept one arm firmly around Malcolm and gently ran his other hand up and down Malcolm’s back. He didn’t pull away. He knew Malcolm would let go when he was ready. 

Finally Malcolm pulled back, still sniffling. He grabbed tissues out of the box next to his bed and blew his nose. “I'm sorry that I'm always such a mess. I'm always going to be just one big problem for everyone in my life,” he said in a whisper.

“Hey,” Gil softly said, cupping Malcolm’s chin and tilting his head up to look at him. “Everything that happened to you was NOT your fault. And you're not a 'problem' in my life. I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't care about you. Do you understand?”

Malcolm nodded his head. “Come here,” Gil said, pulling him into another hug and kissing the top of his head. “I know you. You’re a good person. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

Malcolm nodded. “You know me. Better than anyone else.”

“You ready to try sleeping again?” Gil asked.

“Yeah, might as well.” He pulled a new mouth guard out of a drawer by his bed and put it in his mouth. Gil secured him again in his wrist restraints and, just like earlier, stayed by him until he fell asleep. He settled back on the couch and picked up his book. He was glad he’d gotten two that were over 600 pages long. This was going to be a long night. But he had sat this vigil before and he would do it again and, as long as he was alive, he would do it whenever Malcolm needed him.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time since I've written any fanfic. Comments, constructive criticism, and kudos are always welcome. Let me know if you'd like more!


End file.
